


A New Beginning

by Karari



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Daddy Issues, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, Lúthien's daddy issues for a change, Non-Canonical Character Death, Self-Harm, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 08:55:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11848224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karari/pseuds/Karari
Summary: Lúthien looks for allies.





	A New Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TreasureHunter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TreasureHunter/gifts).



> Written for the following request: "a serious fic where they're (going to be) in a serious relationship, not a dream sequence or non-con." (I do hope you like it, recip!)

Nothing gave him away. Not the stirring of a leaf, not the thug of a footfall. He emerged from the shadows of a tree just when Lúthien thought she had made it out of Nargothrond without being detected, and all her thoughts were already turned to Beren and his peril. 

She clutched her mantle tighter about herself as he stopped right in front of her, blocking the way forward, and the tension in her hand quickly spread to her whole body. His hair was unbound, and fell over his shoulders like a fur cloak. He was by far not as tall as her father, but there was something unnerving about him, something sinister in his eyes. 

“I won't spend a day longer in the caves, as your captive,” she said, and meant it. 

Celegorm's gaze brushed off of her and settled on Huan, who stood at her side, staring fixedly at his master and friend.

“What do you think you can accomplish?” he asked in his perfectly correct Sindarin with the wrong lilt, still not looking at her.

Lúthien slipped a hand out of her mantle and put it on the hound's head. Huan keened softly, and leant into her touch. “More than you, to be sure.”

“By the power of your mother? By the strength of your love?”

“Because I must,” she said, imparting strength to her voice, “and because I will. Because nothing matters to me more than Beren.”

Celegorm shook his head. His shoulders hunched, his arms lifted. In a flash his hands were on her, seized her mantle. Huan let out a loud growl, a warning, but Celegorm slammed her against the trunk of the tree behind which he had been hiding. Lúthien let out a surprised gasp. The mantle slipped off her head and she trembled at the bite of the cold together with the sting of Celegorm's gaze on her. 

“Do you think you are the only one who loves?”

“If this is your way of showing love –”

“This is not about _you_ ,” he snarled, but the next instant he was kissing her.

He managed to taste her, before Lúthien shut her mouth, and he could only drag his tongue over her tightly pursed lips. She tasted him in turn, his scent filled her nostrils, heavy and bitter as the gathering gloom. Lúthien put her hands on his chest and managed to push him back. He let her go. He stepped back and made a sweeping gesture towards the north. 

“Go. You'll face death. And it won't be pretty.”

“I will overcome death.”

“I will not let my father down, and betray _his_ love.”

Lúthien straightened her mantle and covered her head again, her shape now merging with the starless twilight. Her lips were still wet with his saliva, and she dared not lick them clean. “I will come back. And settle the score.”

“By all means. Your mother is a Maia, but I learned hunting from a Vala.”

Lúthien turned her back on him, on the caves and on Doriath and didn't look back once. Huan let her ride him, carried her swiftly as the wind up the island of werewolves, her head light with the anticipation of danger, her heart brimming with hope and love. 

Huan brought her back to Nargothrond, while she sat slumped on his back, scarcely taking notice of her surroundings, of when they stopped, of her hunger or the icy cold of the nights. 

Beren was dead. 

She had defeated Gorthaur with the hound's help, brought down the tower and broken its dungeons open. But Beren's body still hung from the shackles which had kept him upright through his torment, like a twisted banner spread out to mock her. 

The sight lingered behind her closed eyelids, was aped by the gnarled shapes of dead trees, lurked in the corners of the maze that was Nargothrond. 

She had seen evil unfurled in all its gruesome, palpable horror on Beren's body. He had been almost unrecognizable, his face swollen and half-skinned, his chest hollowed out, his legs mangled.

Her love was dead, and she was lost.

She did think of returning to the safety of her mother's girdle, bask in the unchanging peace of Doriath and put the ghastly memories behind herself. One thing deterred her: her father would have been happy to have her back. It had been his intention all along, to send Beren to his death. And Beren had died, and suffered, suffered more than anyone should suffer, suffered more than she had been able to imagine anyone could suffer. 

She longed for death, too, longed to meet him again. 

But a new wish slowly took root inside her while she exhausted herself pacing the length and breath of the caves until she knew every nook and cranny. She wanted to return evil for evil, and make those who had tortured Beren to death suffer twice as much as he had, and the one who had unleashed their evil on the land suffer until he cursed his divine existence. She needed allies for that. She needed people who were as determined as her, as dead-set on revenge against the Dark Foe of the world as she was.

“Write to my father again,” she told Celegorm before he even looked up from the array of poultices and brews spread out on the table before him. 

There was a new tension in his frame, and in his eyes. Orodreth wanted to oust him and his brother from Nargothrond. The upheaval caused by her return and her tale had turned everybody's attention to grief and sorrow for the time being, and he had been trying to keep a low profile.

Celegorm merely raised an eyebrow at her, and went on coating arrow-tips in poison.

“We are getting married,” she clarified.

He gave a cackle. “Are we now?” 

“You want to defeat Morgoth Bauglir, do you not?”

“I thought you didn't particularly care about that.”

“I do now.”

“What if I'm not interested in getting married to you any longer?”

Lúthien strode across the room to the table, and picked up one of the arrows. They were of different make than the ones that were used in Doriath. She studied the oddly shaped tip, and thought, briefly, of stabbing Celegorm with it. Despite the grudge she still harbored against him, he was her best bet, his people the best suited to help her reach her goal. And her grudge against Celegorm was easier to bear than her resentment towards her father. 

“I wouldn't call you keeping me locked up in the most secluded corner of the caves an attempt at a healthy relationship.”

“You set out to steal a Silmaril and take it to your father,” he shrugged, dislodging his braids from his shoulders, “and you refused my proposal.”

 _Because I had Beren_ , the thought flashed in her mind before Lúthien could stop it, because grief had not yet seized her heart. Celegorm didn't sneer at her when she returned, he greeted her with matter-of-fact civility amid the general surprise, as if she were a child who had realized the dangers of the venture she had undertaken just as she had been meant to. He had reminded her keenly of her father. She didn't lash out at him only because she had been utterly exhausted and famished.

“My duty to my father is greater than anything else.”

“Is it worth it?”

Celegorm smirked. “Yes yes. It would be hard to understand for you. A house atop a tree, right? Like a caged bird. Your father did that to you. Why not go back to Doriath and ask his help?”

“Think of _your_ position here. If Orodreth throws you out of Nargothrond, you can only crawl back to your big brother and hide forever in his shadow. Is that how you plan to honor your father's dying wish?”

Celegorm halted in mid-motion, the shaft of an arrow squeezed between his fingers. Then he very slowly set it down on the pile of carefully poisoned arrows. “Are you ready to make an enemy of your father?”

“My father will see reason, sooner or later,” she said, though she didn't really believe it – she couldn't – and knew he didn't either. 

Celegorm rose and came to stand before her. She stood still while he looked her in the eye, his emotions bared to her in his formidable gaze. 

“As you wish then,” he said, glancing towards the table again.

Lúthien had the absurd thought that he wanted to write the letter with the poison: it wouldn't have been that amiss. 

The letter was sent, stating that Lúthien had agreed to marry Celegorm and even inviting the King and Queen of Doriath to the ceremony. A mere five days later, Celegorm waved her father's reply in her face, a sheet of birch-bark lined with angular runes, the total opposite of fine Noldorin parchment and the rounded tengwar of Fëanor. 

“If Curufin read this right, your father says that he forbids our marriage, that you won't ever marry anybody he doesn't approve of, and that I should return you to him as quickly as possible, else he'll send someone to fetch you.”

Lúthien didn't have to read the missive to know that Curufin's interpretation was very likely correct. She read it anyway, because her heart just hoped that her father had not made the same mistake twice, that he wasn't trying to cage her again. Then she turned to her soon-to-be husband, demanded ink, a brush and had him jot down her reply in tengwar. She copied them studiously, endeavoring to make them as round and as flowery as she could. Her message was simple: _Worry not father, you may yet have a Silmaril_.

The long-faced messenger who had been tasked with handing Thingol her reply had barely left when Lúthien straddled a naked Celegorm on Celegorm's bed, herself naked from the waist down. 

He was too tall, too broad and too fair, his fairness of body and face utterly unlike Beren's less polished beauty. 

She swallowed around a lump in her throat. Beren's corpse filled her mind, accused her that she was about to betray him and his love and his suffering. Maybe, after she was done destroying Morgoth, she could leave this life and join him. Their separation didn't have to last forever. She could surely find a way. 

Celegorm put his hands on her hips. They glided down and drew an arch following the swell of her thighs. He brushed her clit, gently. His gentleness unnerved her. She found herself wishing that he would just position her over his cock, take her and take the weight of her decision off her shoulders. A moan escaped her as he moved his thumb in slow circles over her nub and gently down, along her slit. Beren had done the same, almost the same, under the birches and the stars, in a clean and carefree world. She gritted her teeth, and forced herself to banish all thoughts of Beren from her mind. 

She glanced at Celegorm's un-elven eyes, then she took him in hand and lined the head of his cock with her opening. Taking a deep breath, she started to take him inside herself. 

“Relax,” Celegorm whispered.

She did, with his hands cradling and pleasuring her. She rose and fell, her breasts bouncing on her chest, with a regular smacking sound that was unexpectedly soothing. She closed her eyes at first, but there was no denying the sensations she felt, the slide of Celegorm's thick cock in and out of her, so she re-opened them, balanced herself with her hands on either side of Celegorm's shoulders and let his eyes devour her while she fucked herself on him. He never moved, apart from the steady caress of his hands, apart from spasms that the couldn't control and the great heaving of his body when he came inside her.

His seed filled her, bathed her womb. She looked up towards the stone ceiling, away from him as she felt it shoot inside her. It was done. It was done, and her revenge could begin. 

She collapsed on the bed, and lay on her side. Celegorm rolled over to face her. They stared at each other in silence, suddenly overcome by the awkwardness of the situation. That wasn't how a marriage should begin. After a time, Celegorm reached towards her face to comb down her hair. It always stood up and away from her head in wayward locks, after she cut it, and it did so even more wildly now, after sex. 

“Ah, but you are so beautiful,” he murmured, almost to himself. 

She gave a bitter chuckle. 

The door creaked open and heavy canine breathing rang out loudly in the room. 

They both turned to see Huan standing at the foot of the bed, staring at them with his mouth open, his clever eyes beaming, and his tail lashing the air excitedly.

“Well, at least he is unquestionably happy,” Celegorm said with fondness.

Huan moved to his side of the bed, and stood with his front paws arching over Celegorm's body, like a hug, to lay his head down between them where Lúthien could reach it. She smiled and started to pet him. 

Celegorm freed his hands from under him and started rubbing his back. “If Huan agrees with our marriage, it means we can make a good partnership.”

Later, as Lúthien struggled to fall asleep, she thought she heard a muffled, cracking sound, as of a whip lashing through air to hit skin, but brushed it off as a malicious trick of her imagination. 

The sound returned a few nights later, clearer, when having sex with Celegorm already felt much more natural, as did sleeping in the same bed. Knowing that Huan dozed on the rug at the foot of the bed made her feel more comfortable, more secure, too, and her sleep wasn't troubled any longer. 

The sound went on and on, all too real. It could only come from the next room. She put on a robe and crept to the door connecting Celegorm's room to his brother's. She opened it without making a sound. In the dim blueish light of one of his father's lamps, Curufin knelt on the bare floor, his bare back criss-crossed by self-inflicted lashes, some of them dripping blood.

He sensed her presence, and perceived by her footfalls that it was not his brother who infringed upon his privacy. He didn't say anything, only lowered his flail, waiting for her to do or say something. Her distaste for him, for his scheming and his lack of regrets even after hearing the news of Finrod's death, hadn't become any less strong after her marriage to his brother, and she intended to leave him to whatever he wanted to do to himself. She turned to go back to her room, but she became aware of someone sobbing in the next room. She brushed past Curufin, throwing him a fleeting, unsympathetic glance. 

Curufin's son was sitting on his bed in the next room. His hands cradled his head and covered his ears. He started when the sharp whack of the flail ricocheted off the wall that separated the two rooms. “I can't make him stop,” he said in a sob, looking up at her with pleading eyes.

Lúthien sat on the bed next to him and hugged him. He sank into her arms. When his sobs subsided and he realized he had been crying on her shoulder he tried to wriggle free of her hold, mumbling: “I'm sorry, Lady.”

“It's aunt now,” Lúthien said, smoothing down his perfectly smooth hair. 

Celebrimbor nodded, and gave a sheepish smile, but didn't meet her gaze. He looked almost apologetic, as if he had been responsible for all of his father and uncle's earlier misdeeds. 

“You love your father?” Lúthien asked him.

Celebrimbor's tentative smile faded. “A lot.”

Lúthien wondered if she would have been able to give the same reply if someone had asked her if she loved her father, and so candidly, in such a heartfelt way. Perhaps. Perhaps she would even hug him, if he came to look for her himself and they were suddenly face to face again. “Then...don't let him push you away.”

On her way back to her room, she wrenched the flail from Curufin and looked directly in his glazed, blood-shot eyes. “Your son needs you.”

Huan was waiting for her when she returned to her and Celegorm's room. 

“Take this away, destroy it.”

Huan trotted off briskly, clearly pleased with his task. 

Lúthien slipped back into the bed.

Celegorm, who was awake and had probably been for a long time, slid close to her. “Thank you.” He made to throw his arms around her, but she gripped them and held them back.

“Why didn't you stop him?”

“Because I can't give him what he needs to feel happier.”

“But we will, isn't that what we're doing? We can't bring your father back from the dead, and I can't bring Beren back from the dead, but we can do much more than hurting ourselves. Unless your brother doesn't trust me _at all_.”

“He doesn't. He fears you might bring them to your father after all. Isn't that what you wrote in your letter to him?”

“I did, as an obvious taunt,” Lúthien said with impatience and let go of her husband's arms. "I couldn't care less about the Silmarils! And, as you should have guessed, I have no reason to want my father to have anything. Why would I? Just so he can feel that his demands are justified, so he can expect me to give in to whatever he asks in order to be free to love whomever I want? And I am pregnant. My child will be Fëanor's grandchild and a rightful claimant to the Silmarils, will they not?”

Celegorm nodded. He put his hand in the cleft of her robe and brushed it over her womb, which was still flat. He massaged her dreamily, slowly moving his hand further down until he carded his fingers through the curls that crowned her womanhood.

“Curufin used to be married too. His wife died on Nan Dungortheb,” he said quietly. “We asked your guards to take our young ones and our wounded at least. We would have collected them on the other side of the girdle, past the corner of the forest, away from the spiders.”

He didn't need to tell her the rest of the story - she knew the guards had been ordered not to let any Noldor inside Doriath, even with orcs at their heels.

She grabbed his chin, forcing him to look up, and kissed him on the lips.

“We could destroy those spiders too.”

“Now you think you can make everything right again with vengeance?”

“Isn't that the point of your Oath?”

Celegorm clicked his tongue. “Only against those who put our possessions out of our reach.”

He rolled on top of her, and tried to slid down on her body, but she wrapped her arms around him, trapping him against her. 

“Curufin will come around to you, sooner or later. Everything will be fine...my love.”

She sighed at the endearment and kissed him again, harder than the last time. She had asked him not to use any other endearment. Her father used every last one of them with her, his only child, and she didn't want to hear them now, because they hurt, because she didn't need to be reminded that all of his mistakes were grounded in the fact that he was so terribly afraid to lose her. 

“Fools,” she said with a light shake of her head. “A damned fool, every last one of you”, she insisted, but parted her legs under him and canted her hips to meet his need.


End file.
